


His Right Hand

by athena_crikey



Category: Endeavour (TV), Inspector Morse (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Morse has a Feel, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 05:13:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8191519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: Lewis has a close call on a case. Morse tries to convince himself the if game's no good to any bugger.





	

The grass is slippery underfoot, slick with the recent rain. Overhead moonlight is trickling through a faint layer of clouds, giving the world a cold, grey hue. It shines on the river like silver ribbon, the water flowing gently between dark banks. There’s a thick green smell, of grass and clover and damp leaves. 

It would be heavenly, Morse considers, if not for Dickie Gallon. Dickie Gallon, petty thief, vandal, and recent witness to the murder of a prominent don’s wife. Dickie Gallon, who took off like a greyhound hearing the bell at the sight of his warrant card, Lewis haring off gamely behind.

“Catch him, Lewis,” orders Morse as the two men sprint through the darkness alongside the Cherwell; he follows behind at a mellower pace, hands in his pockets. Running is for sergeants; providing commentary is the job of their elders and betters. 

Some ways ahead a wooden dock stands halfway out across the water, a mooring point for punts in the warmer weather when the river is crammed with half-clothed undergrads feeding gibbering ducks while listening to what they’re pleased to call music. Morse still walks by the rivers on occasion, but he’s long since learned the quiet secluded stretches unblemished by the young with their boomboxes and rock cassettes. 

Gallon is making for the dock, its wooden slants glinting wet and slick. He hooks around onto it, the tattoo of his footsteps echoing across the silent waters. Without pausing he reaches the end and hurls himself forward in a half-dive, surfacing with all the grace of a garbage scow and beginning to swim. With the boost off the end of the dock he’s already halfway across the water, and swimming fast. 

“Get after him!” barks Morse, and Lewis curves around onto the dock. He’s about halfway along it, running at full speed, when he catches his foot on an upraised slat and pitches forward. He’s going too fast to catch himself, momentum sending him sprawling downwards. He’s still moving forwards when he hits the wooden surface, scraping along it until his head meets one of the raised legs supporting the dock. Already at the side of the narrow structure, gravity exerts its merciless grasp and pulls him over the edge into the water. He hits the surface with a loud splash. 

Out on the far side of the river, Gallon gains the bank and hauls himself up by fisting his hands in the reeds and long grass. Out of the water he shakes himself like a dog and then takes off at a loping pace towards the dark shadow of civilization. 

“Lewis? Lewis!” snaps Morse, irritated, as he makes his way down the steep slope and out onto the dock. There’s no sound of swimming from below and he peers over the side, moonlight pouring down over his shoulders. 

Floating in the water against the leg of the dock is a dark shape, still and unmoving as driftwood. The water slips silently by, bringing no sound of swimming or struggling. 

“Hell,” curses Morse. He sits down abruptly and pushes himself over the edge and into the waist-deep water. The cold is a shock, but far less than the ice already pumping through his veins. He reaches out and grabs hold of the dark form; it turns over limply in his arms and very abruptly he is struck by a memory from twenty years ago, of Lake Silence and Joss Bixby’s sodden body in his arms, face a bloody pulp. He had screamed then, cried out at the horror of the discovery. 

It’s not horror he feels now, but fear. Its daggers are stabbing deeply into the quick of his heart, freezing him through. The adrenaline is driving him at a pace too fast for thought to keep up; he knows only instinct and emotion and they are both dancing to the beat of the same drum: _no no no._

Morse’s stomach turns sharply as he reaches out to find Lewis’ neck and raise his lolling head out of the water. “Lewis? _Lewis?_ ”

There’s no answer.

He drags his sergeant back to shore, water licking eagerly at his trouser legs and muddy bottom slipping away beneath the soles of his shoes. It takes a couple of tries to stagger out, dragging the lighter man behind him. He only bothers to scramble half-way up the bank before laying Lewis down and scrabbling at his collar. His hands, he realises as he presses his fingers to Lewis’ neck, have lost the delicate sensitivity needed to feel his pulse in the coldness of the river. He puts his hand over the sergeant’s heart instead, and heaves a great sigh when he feels Lewis’ chest’s constant rise and fall. 

“You arse. You complete and utter arse, Robert Lewis,” snarls Morse as he slumps back to wait for his heart to slow towards a more regular pattern. “That was the most clumsy, inept, _bungling_ …” he takes a breath, running a damp hand through his hair. “Christ,” he finishes, as his chest finally begins to loosen. 

In the thin moonlight he can only just make out the waxy sheen of Lewis’ skin; any kind of first aid is absolutely out of the question, even supposing he could bring any to mind. He rises instead and pulls Lewis the rest of the way out of the water, shaking him gently as he goes. “Lewis? Lewis, wake up for God’s sake. Can’t have you lolling about on duty. _Lewis!_ ” There’s no answer to his pleas though, and when Morse lies him back down on the bank he doesn’t move. A sliver of fear creeps back into Morse’s chest; he pulls Lewis’ soaked jacket off him and, divesting himself of his own and emptying the pockets of his keys and wallet, he lays it down over the unconscious man. “You bloody well better stay there,” he threatens tiredly, and takes off at a jog in the direction of the road and, waiting for him there, the Jag.

  
***

Waiting on one of the matte plastic chairs in Casualty, Morse wonders idly if this is how Thursday felt, on the many occasions he took duty down the path of recklessness. Whether, after hearing that Morse had been cut down by the Opera Lunatic, the inspector had sat at his desk with a cold wet feeling like his skin had been slathered with mud and that a treeful of caterpillars had hatched in his stomach to eat their way out. Whether, on going home that hideous January after the Moonlight Rooms and Coke-Norris debacle that had ended in his taking Morse up north with a bullet in his leg, Thursday had gone to his hotel and just sat sitting at the wall, struggling not to shiver at the shattering prospect of _what if._

Morse has lived his life surrounded by death. He’s lost his parents, his mentors, his friends to it. He’s seen the bodies of the elderly and helpless, and the young and innocent. But he’s never lost a man he’s been responsible for, never ceded a life placed in his hands. Never even been threatened with it. 

Sitting cold and alone in the back of the crowded Casualty ward, Morse struggles to keep from shivering and wonders how much of the chill he feels is due to his damp trousers. He suspects, with a sharpness that cuts him, that the answer is: very little.

  
***

He’s mostly dried off by the time Val Lewis arrives. He’s been dreading her arrival, in part due to the guilt that’s been eating away at him like acid, and in part due to the anticipated awkwardness of the children. But when she hurries into the open waiting room she’s alone; Morse is too grateful to spend any time wondering about the logistics of it.

She looks around the room once before spotting him, half-rising from his chair. She hurries over before he has the chance to straighten entirely. “What’s happened? Where is he?”

“He took a fall and struck his head. Concussion, according to the doctor. They’re doing a set of x-rays and things now to make sure everything’s okay.” 

“Is he awake? Can I see him?”

Morse slips his hands into his trouser pockets. “He’s not awake – at least, he wasn’t when I last saw him. The doctor should be back shortly to give an update.” Had better be, replaces Morse mentally. 

He motions Mrs Lewis to the seat beside his and waits for her to seat herself before retaking his own place in the uncomfortable chair. Her eyes are unfocused, her thoughts miles away. Doubtless on her husband – doubtless worrying about every potential pitfall. 

“They’re horrible places, these waiting rooms,” he says eventually, when she begins chewing at her lip in nervousness. “I suppose you’ve spent some time here – childhood maladies and the like…”

She glances at him; her expression is worried, but her eyes return to his and slowly he sees her distraction fade. “Not really. The children were always very healthy. Lyn broke her arm one summer – took a tumble off a friend’s shed. I’d always thought boys were the risk-takers, but…” her eyes cloud over again; he can practically see her thoughts leaping back to Lewis. 

“He’ll be fine, Val. I may call you Val?” he asks, and she nods. “Lewis has a hard head, and a tough hide. He’s young; he’ll bounce back.”

_Mickey Carter_ , his mind picks out of the background sea of thoughts and pushes forward for his attention. It’s a moment before he can place it; when he does he remembers the smell of smoke and the heat of flames on his face and the sound of glasses clinking in the background. The Crown, sitting tucked away in the snuggery at the back with Fred Thursday. Talking about the inspector’s previous bagman, a life lost in the line of duty, a reputation buried. And Thursday, left alone and grieving in a world that had no sympathy for it. 

Thursday had paid out the pension the Met had disallowed, supported Carter’s widow until her remarriage. Lived for years – decades – with the kind of guilt that lingers like a bloodstain, fading but never vanishing. 

Today they have pensions for widows, but no cure for guilt. 

“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” asks Val suddenly, breaking into Morse’s own morbid thoughts. He blinks, and finds her watching him closely. “Sitting – waiting. For news.”

“Yes,” he says. It’s true. All coppers have done it.

“And?”

“And it never gets any easier. But I’ve seen enough dire situations to say that this isn’t one. I’ve never lost a bagman, and I don’t intend to start now.”

“I’ve never heard that before. Robbie, your bagman. Is he?”

It’s an old phrase; outdated, Lewis would probably say. Like him.

Morse leans back, weaving his hands together in his lap. “When I trained, a bagman was more than a lad to drive you about and carry your luggage. He was your shadow, your right hand, and the man watching your back. It’s how I’ve always thought of Lewis.”

Before Val can provide a suitable reply to that a doctor emerges from the back rooms and paces over to them, dressed in the typical white coat. “Inspector. And – er?”

“Mrs Lewis,” introduces Morse; they shake hands. The doctor turns to her, recognizing an authority higher than police rank. 

“Your husband’s taken a bit of a tumble, Mrs Lewis, but he’s pulling through well. He just woke up, and he’s a bit scattered at the moment but that should pass over the next couple of hours. We’ll keep him in overnight just to be safe, but he should be fine to return home tomorrow. I expect he’ll need at least one day off the job – perhaps more.”

“Of course,” says Val; Morse tilts his head in casual acquiescence. 

“You can come through now,” says the doctor, stepping away to guide them into the maze of rooms in the back of Casualty. Val rises; Morse stays seated. She turns to him.

“Aren’t you coming?”

“I can wait,” he says, giving her a brief, tight smile. She gives him a look that cuts straight through his polite mask.

“I’m sure Robbie would like to see you,” she says, waiting pointedly. He rises and follows Val and the doctor through the back doors.

  
***

Lewis has been sequestered away in a room created by drawn curtains hanging from the ceiling, his bed narrow and uncompromising in appearance. He’s lying down under a thin blanket, his dripping clothes in a bag on the floor beside him. There’s a large white square of gauze taped to his forehead, and there are faint scratches running down the length of his left cheek, some ending in little bloody beads. He opens his eyes at the sound of the curtain being drawn back, and half-rises at the sight of Val. She pushes him back down, caressing the unblemished side of his forehead.

Morse stands in the background, shifting his weight from one foot to another. He’s never been good in this type of situation, and he’s too old to start learning now. He watches as Val assures Lewis that he’s alright, that everything will be fine and he’ll be spending the night in hospital – messages the sergeant has doubtless heard already from the medical staff. He doesn’t protest though, just soaks up the attention like a sponge and squeezes Val’s hand when she slips it into his. 

After a moment Val mentions Morse’s presence, and Lewis’ unfocused eyes flit over in his direction. He steps forward and Lewis looks up at him, grimacing crookedly. 

“Well, you’ve really done it this time, Lewis,” he says quietly – his memories of his own concussions are mainly of pain, of the inordinate volume of everything around him and the searing brightness of even the dimmest of lights. “Who’s going to catch Dickie Gallon now?” 

“I’m sure you’ll manage, sir,” says Lewis, his words reassuringly clear. “Probably turn him up tomorrow, like as not.”

Morse doubts it; in between waiting at Lewis’ side for the ambulance and driving hell-for-leather to the hospital, he didn’t remember to radio through to the station to put out a bulletin on Gallon. By tomorrow he could be in Cardiff, or Newcastle, or Paris. Although with his brains, he’ll probably be holed up somewhere in Cowley.

“We’ll get him one way or another,” answers Morse, meaning it. Even if he has to go to Cardiff, or Paris, or bloody Newcastle. At the end of the day, it was Gallon Lewis was chasing when he went down, and that has to be put right. 

A bagman is there to carry out his officer’s orders. His officer is there to come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who gets in his way. 

“Well, take it easy and rest up,” says Morse, out of some lingering sense of obligation to offer inane comments. “I’ll see you on Thursday.”

“Yes, sir.”

He smiles at Val, who gives him a gentle smile of her own in return, and pushes his way past the curtains and into the disordered hallway of the operational side of Casualty. He snakes through the corridors until he finds the exit, back through the waiting room and into the cool autumn evening beyond. 

_The If game’s no good to any bugger_ , Fred Thursday had told him decades ago after their first case together, with the air of someone who had played it to perfection. Perhaps that’s what it is to have a wife, or children, or best mates. 

Perhaps it’s what it is to have a bagman. One thing Thursday hadn’t taught him, not until now. 

Morse goes home, pours himself a tumbler of scotch, and tries to look to the future rather than the past. 

END


End file.
